Pros

Cons

Bottom Line

Rev's accurate and reasonably priced transcription service makes it easy to transform your recorded content into a usable format.
It's our top choice for transcription services.

June 29, 2018Ben Moore

The process of transcribing an audio or video file can be tedious and time consuming. You could spend hours typing out interviews and notes by yourself, or you could make your life easier by using a transcription service like Rev. This human-based service is an excellent option for transforming your recorded files, producing highly accurate transcripts at a reasonable price. Its web interface is only average and it lacks a subscription model (you have to pay by the minute), but these are only minor drawbacks to an otherwise outstanding service. For those reasons, Rev is our Editors' Choice for transcription services.

How Much Does Rev Cost?

Rev's pricing is straightforward; it costs $1 per minute of uploaded audio or video files. There's no bulk rate, extra cost for quicker delivery, or penalty for poor audio quality. The only exceptions are an extra $0.25 per minute each if you want time stamps every 30 seconds or a verbatim transcription. Verbatim transcripts leave in all the filler words such as "uh" and "um." I like Rev's simple pricing structure, though I wish it offered a monthly subscription option (at a discount) for professionals or teams who rely heavily on such services for their work.

The under-12 hour turnaround time for files that are 30 minutes or shorter is among the fastest turnaround guarantees I've seen. Customers can opt in to Rev's Shorten Turnaround option for files over 30 minutes (at no extra cost), a delivery process which Rev claims is three times quicker than normal. If you select this option, your transcription job is split into several segments (each worked on by a separate transcriptionist) and stitched together at the end. Rev does not offer a free trial option.

For comparison, Trint costs $15 per hour of audio transcribed or $40 per month for 3 hours, if you go for their subscription model. Both are more cost-effective than Rev, though it is worth noting that Trint is an automated service—software does the job, not people. Scribie's middle-of-the-road option costs $1.20 per minute with a 36-hour turnaround time. However, Scribie charges extra fees for recordings with poor quality or speakers with strong accents.

How It Works

To get started with Rev, you need to sign up with an email address. Once you log in, click the Get Started button on the main Transcription Page or Place New Order button from the account section. Rev gives you the option to either upload a file directly from your computer or paste in a link to a public web address. Once the file uploads successfully into the system, payment and service options appear. For example, you can opt into the time-stamping or verbatim options and select the file format you prefer for exporting. The price in the upper left corner updates continuously depending on the options you select, so you won't ever be caught off-guard by the final cost.

Once you confirm the order, Rev sends you an email with the details, and then a follow-up message once one of the company's freelancers starts working on the job. A Rev freelancer, otherwise known as a Revver, then has the option to claim your transcription from a job board. Only one transcriptionist works on your file in most cases. Revvers can remove themselves from a job if the audio is of poor quality or they are unable to complete it for some reason.

Once a Revver completes your transcription, Rev sends out a notification email, along with an option to rate your Revver once you finish reviewing the work. This is one way the Rev ensures the quality of its transcriptionists, in addition to other internal quality checks.

Web Interface

You can access your completed file via the Rev website. The web console has a basic layout but is fine for most tasks. That said, the interface feels a bit text heavy and the thick gray layout bars at the top and bottom of sections look dated, and the color scheme is a bit dull, as well. The left-hand menu items include Users, Order History, Search Orders, and Settings, along with billing and payment options. The Users section lets you add any number of people to share your same billing account, which is useful for teams. I also like the granularity of the settings options, which let you, for example, specify layout preferences for the exported file.

Most people will stick to the Order History section since that is where your transcribed files live. You can sort your orders by a few different categories including by date, size, or cost. Oddly, you need to visit a separate tab to search through any of your past orders. This information can also be exported to a CSV. Clicking on an individual job brings you to a details page, where you can access the original file or download the transcription directly. Customization options include exporting it as a Word document, a text file, or as a PDF. You can also choose between a text-based and table format for the final document.

Regardless of the service you use, you will likely need to make some changes to the final version or download a copy of an older job at some point. To access Rev's web editor, click on the View & Edit option. This editing console is a simplified version of what Revvers use, and it's an effective way to make changes before exporting. This interface has a clean design and eyesight-friendly dark background, which is helpful for people who stare at a screen most of the day. The blue, red, and white accents contribute help keep it organized.

Along the left rail, there are Undo and Redo buttons, a Reset to Original option, and a toggle for a highlighting feature. This lets you select any number of lines and text and continuously repeat that section, for making detailed edits. On the right, playback controls include a Play/Pause button a quick Rewind button, as well as one for changing the playback speed. Some of these buttons have an associated keyboard shortcut, but for those that don't, familiar keyboard commands work as well. That said, the playback options can be finicky, and the automatic highlighting and timestamp elements that appear each time you reposition the mouse are distracting. However, I really appreciate the speaker identification options. Next to each paragraph of text, you can quickly select any of the identified speakers in the transcript from a drop-down menu.

Temi and Trint also offer a clean text editor as part of their web portal. However, GoTranscript does not include any such functionality.

How Accurate is Rev?

To test out the accuracy of the transcription services, I uploaded the same 16-minute recording to each one. The original recording of a three-person conference call came from an Olympus VN-722PC dedicated voice recorder. It's not an easy recording, but all the voices are clearly audible and there is little, if any, overlapping of voices.

Rev returned the transcript in 1 hour and 16 minutes, which is significantly quicker than Scribie managed. To be fair, Scribie did return the transcription within its promised timeframe, though it took over a day to do so.

Instead of comparing the entirety of each transcript, I chose three paragraphs instead, one from each speaker on the call. For each snippet of the transcription, I marked an error wherever there was a missing or an extra word. I calculated the overall error rate by dividing the total number of mistakes into the total number of words across the combined sections (in this case, 201 words).

The sample for section A is a short introductory section. Section B is slightly longer, has more varied punctuation, and uses more complex vocabulary. Section C is even lengthier and uses some technical language. Rev did an excellent job with this test; it only had an error rate of 3 percent. Scribie also turned in good results, with an error rate of 6 percent. GoTranscript, the other human-based transcript service we tested, produced reasonably good results as well, with an error rate of 10 percent. Most of the automated services produced near unusable results. Take a look at the full chart below for the complete breakdown.

I retested the automatic services with a simpler two-people, in-person recording and calculated the error rate, in the same manner, using two samples, instead of three. The automated services fared better with this task, but they still weren't perfect. The full results of those tests appear below.

Mobile App

Rev offers a mobile app for Android and iOS, though the Android variant has not been updated since 2014. For comparison, the iOS version last received an update in October of 2017. We installed the app on an iPhone 8 running iOS 11 to test how it works. The app is easy to use; just hit the red button at the top of the app to start a recording.

Recordings appear in the center section of the app. You can delete it, edit details, trim or append the recording, and share the file from here. The other option is to order a transcription of the file. Thankfully, there is a search bar for finding recordings by name, location, or date.

Placing your order is simple as well. Transcriptions remain at the same $1 per minute rate, and you can options such as timestamping (every 2 minutes) for an extra $0.25 and specify the speaker names that appear in the transcript. It's worth noting that Rev offers a $10 discount on your first order. Once the transcript is complete, you can view it from within the app via the View Transcript button in the lower right corner. The last option is to link Rev to your Dropbox account for easy exports.

Rev recently released Rev Call Recorder for iOS. In short, this app lets you record and submit your phone calls to Rev for transcription. Users can also share and listen to any previous recordings from the app. Although these features are certainly useful, I feel like Rev would do better to add them to its existing Android and iOS apps.

Both Temi and GoTranscript also offer mobile apps that function in much the same way. Both let you record audio within the app and directly order transcripts afterward. Otter's mobile app is by far the best; the interface looks the most modern and users can edit transcripts directly.

Rev It Up

Let's face it, transcribing any audio or video file is a hassle and requires time and dedication that you just may not have. That's where transcription services can be of assistance. Rev performed very well in our accuracy test and makes it easy to make corrections via its online editor. On top of that, the pricing structure is both reasonable and straightforward. For those reasons, Rev receives our Editors' Choice award for transcription services.

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About the Author

Ben Moore is a Junior Analyst for PCMag’s software team. He has previously written for Laptop Mag, Neowin.net, and Tom’s Guide on everything from hardware to business acquisitions across the tech industry. Ben holds a degree in New Media and Digital Design from Fordham University at Lincoln Center, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of The Observer, the student-run newspaper. He spends his free time taking photos and reading books. You can follow him on Twitter at @benmoore214. See Full Bio